I am trying to play a LAN game between a Mac and a PC. I have been told that it will work. Last night I tried to set it up and I received the same three error messages on both computers. The messages were:

The network socket could not be created.
The network socket encountered an error and was closed. disconnected
Unable to start the message engine.

Is there anyone out there who has tried and successfully played a LAN game from a Mac to a PC? Also, has any one encountered the messages I an getting and is there a fix?

I know that these error messages can occur in a PC to PC LAN game as well. But if its not even possible to play a MAC to PC game then I won't even bother to try and fix it.

Any help would be appreciated.

You should be able to make it work by all accounts.

My first guess would be firewall problems. You probably need to open ports at least on the system that is hosting the game, possibly on the client as well, but as I haven't tried it myself I can't give you definitive answers.

I am trying to host the game on the PC because it is the faster machine. I try not to ever hook the PC up to the internet because I would like to maintain the security of my system so I checked the firewall last night and it is disabled so I dont think that is. I guess my biggest problem is is that I am a Mac guy 100% and I don't know enough about PC to know what I am doing. I'm still hoping that some one replies who has tried to do what I am doing and had the same problems that I am having and know how to fix it. If I don't get a fix for this on this forum I will start a new thread on the PC side.

I just wanted to say something to you AlanH. I have posted a handfull of questions on the Mac forum over the last 9 months and I think that you have responded to every one of my questions. I just wanted to thank you for all of your help. Keep it up, please. Us Mac Civer's need your input.

I played a game on a LAN with a Mac and PC. I did host from the Mac, but I didn't have any problems. I would just try hosting on the Mac and see if it works. I'll try it again and see if I can do it both directions. It will take a couple of days because I have to get the PC disc from a guy at work.